Home automation and control systems are used to control the behavior of an environment such as a home or office building. Home automation and control systems allow home occupants to automate and control the use of electrical products and appliances in and around the building. Home automation and control systems create and launch “scenes,” also called house scenes, involving one or more products and appliances. Examples of the types of products and appliances that can be automated and controlled are lighting, entertainment, cooking, heating, air conditioning, window treatments and landscaping. Examples of specific products and appliances that can be automated and controlled are lights, television sets, sound systems, coffee machines, ovens, furnaces, air conditioners, humidifiers and lawn sprinklers. Each product or appliance can be set to a number of different states, i.e., on, off, and, if appropriate, intermediate level. The controller of an electrical product or appliance, together with its effect on the controlled electrical product or appliance, will be referred to as a “device.” The controller may be a physically separate entity from the product or appliance being controlled, or the controller may be physically embedded or integrated into the product or appliance being controlled.
A “scene” includes one (1) or more devices set to a particular state. For example, a morning scene could include the furnace set to 70°, the master bathroom lights on at 50%, the kitchen lights on at 100%, the coffee machine on, the television set in the kitchen on to a particular channel, and the front porch light off. This setting of devices constitutes one scene, and may be triggered by a trigger event also defined by the user, such as the press of a button on a remote control. A different scene may set additional devices and some or all of the members of the one scene to the same or different states.
Scenes may include devices that can be set to level values, such as light dimmers, fan speeds, audio volume controls and device channels. Scenes that include devices set at level values are often difficult to create because each additional scene member changes the total effect, and changing a level of one device may make a previously set level in other scene device now undesirable. For example, the main lighting in a room could be set to the desired total illumination. But the local illumination by the user's reading chair may not be bright enough, so the chair lighting is increased, which may make the room total light too bright, and reducing the other room lights to get the desired total illumination may cause the local illumination by the reading chair light to become too low again. Getting the exact value desired for scene devices may take a lot of trial and error adjustment to the level values until the final device values give the desired total scene effect. Current home automation and control systems create scenes with complex, interacting level values using several methods, each of which has significant drawbacks.
One method is to program the entire scene so that the scene is correct the first time. The human programmer must then go experience the scene to determine if the desired scene effect is right. If the scene effect is wrong, the whole scene must be reprogrammed. This can be a time-consuming process for scenes with many device levels to be set at different values.
Another method is to use a central controller or centralized programmer to set the value level of each scene device individually. The human programmer must then go experience the scene to determine if the desired scene effect is right. If the scene effect is wrong, each device level that is not correct must be reset by the central controller or centralized programmer. This can be a time-consuming process for scenes with many device levels to be set at different values.
A further method is to have the human programmer adjust the devices while experiencing the scene. When the human programmer is satisfied with the total scene effect, the central controller or centralized programmer queries the devices to acquire each scene member's level. This method is prone to error because the human programmer, who must indicate to the central controller or centralized programmer which devices are part of the scene, may forget to include a scene device that was manually adjusted to create the desired scene effect.
Therefore, in light of the above, there is a need for a home automation and control scene programming method that allows infinite scene member of manual adjustments before finalizing a scene, and that automatically keeps track of all scene members, thereby reducing time and scene programming error rate.